


bad things are coming, we are safe

by eldritchbee



Series: the sansa collection [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Childbirth, Childhood Memories, Family Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchbee/pseuds/eldritchbee
Summary: 1. Odds and Ends, snippets of Sansa Stark before the war.2. Lessons, Jon and Sansa aren't very close and it causes hurt feelings on both sides.3. Embroidery, Sansa helps Arya sew, for once.Little childhood ficlets of Sansa in Winterfell.





	1. odds and ends

**Author's Note:**

> I don't accept Game of Thrones as at all canon wrt ASOIAF stuff but it did some good things. AKA I loved Shae and Sansa's friendship and I loved Shae and Ros's talk about Sansa.

_**i. when she was born the bells rung from sunrise to sunset** _

she was a hard child to bear, catelyn stark had never felt so much pain while bearing a child, and would not until the day bran was born again. she screamed, and screamed and screamed and didn’t notice that eddard had rushed in to hold her steady until after the fact. she screamed and screamed because she remembered the letter from lysa, a second miscarriage, and didn’t know what to do if the same happened to her.

it was all over then, and all she felt was joy. a living healthy girl, and her stern husband’s face breaking into one of the biggest smiles she’d seen. he held them both close, kissing them both, holding them both.

a feast was prepared and the whole of winterfell was given as much as their lord could afford. 

such was praised the birth of the daughter of stark, blood of winterfell.

_**ii. winter lives in my bones** _

it was a game the children played when none of their sitters were watching. “stupid,” sansa called it, feeding one of the old hunting hounds who had followed them. “i  _should_  be inside with jeyne. instead of killing myself with all of you.”

“then  _go_ ,” arya huffed, then grinned as she packed a snowball and threw it at your sister. “i bet you’re just  _scared_.”

"of dying in this cold? yes.”

“you’re supposed to be a stark. winter  _lives_  in your bones.”

sansa huffed, but nothing came of it. robb stepped in, trying to mediate. no, sansa would not have to join them if she didn’t want. she could just watch. besides, he wasn’t so sure about letting bran and arya join either. a fight came of it, and insults were thrown, and sansa’s face grew redder and redder as  _most_  of them involved comparing the “coward” with her.

with quickness, she scooped up a load of snow and began to pelt her siblings with it. “fine just time me!” she half-screamed, still trying to keep her temper down and her ladylike poise up as she pulled off her furs. 

in only a thin, indoor dress, sansa lay down in the snow until she couldn’t anymore.

she bragged to her father the next day. only jon and arya could last as long as she.

**_iii. snowfalls_ **

"robb and jon should be practicing in the field with theon. i say we strike them then.”

sansa crouched near the back of one of the barns, with arya and bran. all three children looked like they were up to no good, and septa mordane would have fainted to see such a grin on sansa’s face. bran was their commander, he led the seige upon their brother’s and theon. all three held snowballs in hand and ambushed the boys.

sansa landed the least hits, and ended up crying when theon got her with a snowball to the face, but none of it mattered when bran and arya stepped in front of her and retaliated in revenge for their fallen soldier.

she was throwing snow with a flurry, not even packing it down when arya had grabbed her wrist and they were off, the battle now extending to the rest of the castle’s land. she kicked it up as hard as she could, trying to at least make her brothers pause while she and arya found a good place to hide.

it took half the day before someone finally caught them all and dragged them, soaking wet, in front of the lady and lord stark.

sansa, afraid they were going to be in trouble, wept.

but eddard and catelyn stark only suppressed giggles, gently letting septa mordane know that sometimes children had to act like children. and sansa and arya had plenty of time to be ladies in the future.

_**iv. a wolf in sheeps clothing** _

after her father hands down the smallest, softest, prettiest direwolf to sansa, she’s immediately off with it, ready to show jeyne and beth and all the other girls her new friend.  _a direwolf_ , how absolutely rare and unique, and so fitting for a lady like herself.

as she expected, they all cooed over the puppy immediately, each begging for a turn to pet it’s soft fur and gossiping among themselves while septa was downstairs.

“i hear they can grow as big as ponies. do you think you’ll ride her one day sansa?”

“can one ride a wolf?”

“can one look  _elegant_ on a wolf?”

jeyne is the one who stands and says: “if anyone can do it you know  _sansa_ can,” and beams with pride as her friend graces her with a smile. and after everyone else had left, even allowed jeyne a small hug and a chance at carrying the wolf around.

“so what will you name her?”

sansa’s daydreams start immediately, “i was thinking jonquil, like  _florian_  and jonquil…”

“but i dont think jonquil suits a wolf. isn’t it too southern a name?”

they quickly slipped into arguing, each pulling out the names of famous ladies in story and history, each one quickly shot down by the opposing.

“i want her to be as strong and brave and elegant and beautiful as  _all_ the ladies who have stories told about them though,” sansa says finally, dejected as she holds her puppy up in the air and stares into her eyes, as though this would help the name come.

jeyne means it as a joke when she says: “well just name her lady then.” but thats the name that sticks when they call on the pup to play from day to day.

_**v. a castle of snow** _

is built one day years from this time by a girl with black hair and sad eyes.

 _sansa stark is dead_ , she says as she forms each chamber of the castle from memory. the hall she was born, the area where the snow was deepest, the fields where the boys trained, the places two girls played with a puppy while eating lemon cakes gifted to them by the chef.  _sansa stark is dead, i killed her._

(she breathes, safe and sound within the snow built walls far away from home)


	2. lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how its canon that Sansa tried to teach Jon how to talk to girls? Because I can never forget.
> 
> warnings for discriminatory language wrt bastards in Westeros mostly and casual ableist language

“Hey Snow, where’s your shadow?” Theon Greyjoy has been teasing him mercilessly, and even Robb joins in snickering. The last month has been nearly  _unbearable_ for several reasons. Jon considers that it may be the worst of his entire life.

“Keep laughing, Greyjoy, you say it like she’s not going to turn on you next.”

 _She_  is his younger half sister, Sansa, who previous to this had gone from the damsel in their boy’s games to a complete stranger of a lady to… well, a  _proper lady_  learning how  _proper gentlemen_  should act. From Arya, Jon learns that Septa Mordane has been filling the girls’ heads with “stupid” Southron ideals of how true  _knights and lords and highborn men_  should act, and Sansa has decided Jon embodies  _none_  of these things.

(To be fair, she’s also decided that Robb is also  _sorely_ lacking in manners, and Theon Greyjoy is just a  _pig_ , but she turns on him first.)

The two of them have gone to barely speaking the past year, when she started to try and mimic her lady mother more and more, to her spending every second she wasn’t with her friends in lessons trying to teach him how to  _conduct himself_. Because, apparently, he doesn’t know how to do this for himself.

(“You’re a  _bastard_ , Jon!” Sansa sighs when he asks why she can’t just go to Robb or Theon first. This doesn’t soften him to her demands, and in fact serves to make him  _more_  obstinate that he doesn’t need this or her.

“No one is going to ask a  _bastard_  to dance, Sansa,” he’ll say snidely when she tries to pull him into some Southron style, “don’t think it matters what a  _bastard_  says to girls, Sansa, they aren’t looking for a  _proper conversation_  if they’re looking at a  _bastard_ , Sansa. Do people expect a  _bastard_  to know all this? Do you…”

He can feel her growing frustrated with him

thinks  _good_  when she finally lets him go without crying and he can run off to Theon and Robb or Arya until she finds another lesson for him to learn.

Though he always hopes she won’t come back.)

It’s table etiquette that finally gets them, Sansa berating Jon about his use of a fork and knife (“you’re stabbing at it like you’re trying to  _battle_  it! Do you know how that looks!?”) when Jon finally snaps at her.

“You know I don’t  _get_  to sit with all of you when  _important_ guests come! Are you making fun of me, is that what this is? Are you and Jeyne Poole laughing about this?  _Poor Jon, can’t even cut his meat right_.” And he throws the silverware to the table picks up the meat with his hands, and feeds it to one of the hounds that Sansa had been playing with before he’d come in.

He realizes it’s a bad idea before he even does it.

Realizes it even more when he sees the look on her face, how she’s turning red fast and tears are starting to stream down her face.

“ _I hate you_ , Jon Snow!” she yells, loud enough that everyone in the large room could hear as she bolts from it with her hands over her face. Behind him, he hears concerned whispers, some laughter, and his embarrassment is the only thing that has him on his feet and running after her.

She’s slow and small, her dress catching in her legs so that it’s easy for Jon to catch up and grab her by the hand, pulling her back.

What’s less easy is when she suddenly goes boneless, slumping to the floor in an effort to make him give up and let go. What’s even less easy is the way she’s yelling now, “I hate you  _I hate you_  I  _hate_  you! You’re so stupid Jon I  _hate_  you! Why do you  _hate me_!?

You like  _everyone_  better than me.

I just wanted to  _help_!”

He doesn’t let her go, though. Instead he drops to the ground as she tries to get away, scrambles to pull her to sit up and face him, hands on her shoulders. He’s still angry. “Help how? By teaching me stuff no one  _cares_  if I do anyway? Thanks for that, makes me feel  _so much better_ –” he’s cut off when she slaps her hands against his chest, trying to shove him away.

“I just wanted you to  _surprise_  everyone!” her voice starts quieting to little sobs as she wipes her nose on her arm. “Everyone would say,  _oh that’s Jon Snow he’s so proper yes he’s a bastard but just look at him_. And you would be proud and I would be proud because you’d say,  _my half-sister Sansa did this isn’t she just the perfect lady_ , and you’d actually like me more than Robb or Arya for  _once_! For  _one thing_! But no you  _hate_  me you don’t even want to  _try_  and do this and I  _hate_ –”

and then Jon’s hands are pulling her into a hug. Still angry, frustrated, but less so than before. He doesn’t know whether it’s more guilt or the odd pleasure of Sansa, who hardly spoke to him before, thinking she was doing something nice for him.

She  _wasn’t_ , he’ll insist, but the thought was there. And he is a little pleased that she wanted him to spend more time with him.

That she didn’t think of him as some shameful thing to hide away.

“I don’t hate you Sansa,” he sighs, wincing once he realizes she’s wiping her running nose against his shirt. “That’s not very ladylike,” he teases, moving to pat her hair in a way meant to be soothing.

A muffled, “shush,” comes from her, “don’t tell Arya,” like she’d read his mind, because he was absolutely thinking of what he would tell Arya.

“You’re going to tell her, aren’t you? And then you’re just going to both make  _fun_  of me and how  _stupid_  I am and…” and because, yes, he was thinking of doing that exactly, Jon says:

“I’m not going to tell Arya about this if  _you_  don’t tell Jeyne Poole about how abysmal I am with a knife and fork and make fun of me.”

She pulls away, pouting. “Fine,” she says, “not like Jeyne won’t be able to see for herself.”

She has her arms folded across her chest now, looking away from him at the wall. Jon sighs then, pats her head again and decides it wouldn’t be so bad to make a compromise about this. “If this is really what you want to do, then I’ll willingly go along with all of your lessons one day a week. But you have to leave me alone about them the other days.”

“I don’t need you to  _pity_  me Jon!” Sansa whines, sniffling again like she’s going to start crying. In return, he pinches her nose.

She bats at his hand. “If you don’t want to  _spend time with me_  I’ll leave you alone forever and  _ever_  and…”

“I don’t want you to leave me alone forever, dummy. I’m just not good at this sort of thing, and listen neither are Robb or Theon so it’s not like I’m the only one who would be fighting you, okay?” (He thinks, but doesn’t say:  _Robb and Theon were far more likely to get fed up with her far sooner_.) “You’re my sister.”

“ _Half_  sister.”

“ _Half_  sister, it’s still important. Or do you not think so.”

She pouts again. “Well…  _I guess_.”

“If I let you teach me to dance sometimes and cut meat, will you come by with Arya when we’re practicing?” She starts to protest, he cuts her off, “you don’t have to get  _dirty_  or anything, just watch. Bring Jeyne Poole and lunch and you can laugh with me when Theon tries to show off for anyone who’ll watch.”

Sansa shifts, clearly exhausted and leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Or do you still hate me, Sansa?” he asks, only half teasing with that.

“I never  _hated_  you,” she argues. “You were just being  _mean_.”

“So were you, that hurt when you said that.”

“Sorry,” she says, glum and guilty now that he points that out.

“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

“Okay. Only if we go back and finish the lesson,” she says, now looking up at him determined and almost demanding. For that moment, Jon regrets his offer to compromise, because she certainly looks like she’s going to be stricter a second time around. Besides, he remembers the way they’d left things in the dining hall, and doesn’t particularly want to go back right now to that.

“Maybe… let’s not go back in there. How about we work on something else.”

He stands then, holding a hand out for her to take. She does, pulling herself up and dusting herself off trying to look as demure and ladylike as she can with her face still blotchy red and her nose still running. “You’re still  _awful_  at talking to girls, that’s pretty important. And then… I’ll come to the training grounds tomorrow with Jeyne and… Arya too I guess. And maybe it’ll be fun. If I give you my favor, will you take it?

And Jon laughs at that, remembering the games they used to play when they were younger and Sansa was easier to drag around with promise of a story where she was the leading lady. He remembers a crown she’d made of blue roses once, and the way she picked petals off and gave one to Robb and Theon and to him.

(He remembers father didn’t like those games much.)

Still he says, “of course,” and ushers her along. “So long as you help me with Robb and Theon. They’ve been teasing me lately, you see…”

(And maybe, Jon thinks as Sansa helps him conspire on how to get back at the older boys, maybe this won’t be as bad as he thought.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted november 2, 2016
> 
> aka way long after I'd read my last ASOIAF book in a while and long after I quit the show so uh, maybe not TOTALLY canon compliant


	3. embroidery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so Sansa and Arya love each other and everyone can fight me.
> 
> Sansa helps Arya with her sewing... kind of. General generic sibling bullying / meanness inside.

Septa Mordane has decided that for their Lady Mother’s name day that the Stark girls were to show their progress in lessons. She’s directed them to take scraps of their old baby clothes and embroider something memorable on it.

Well, Arya can say at least what she’s created is memorable. A memorable  _monstrosity_.

It was about the fifth time Septa Mordane had come by to criticize Arya’s stitches, and she was about ready to bolt before the threat of tears became a reality. She’s already  _sniffling_ , head down and unable to help the way her face starts to turn red in a great effort to keep the tears from spilling over. Beside her, for one rare day without Jeyne Poole or any of the other girls, Sansa has been praised twice as many times as Arya has been criticized.

She’d dare not look up to see, as surely such  _‘blindingly lovely stitches’_ wouldn’t be very good for the piece of dust Arya insists is stuck in her eye when her older sister pauses to ask what’s wrong with her.

(She doesn’t under _stand_ , after all.

Really, what she’d wanted was to go outside and scour the grounds for some flowers. But Septa Mordane  _insisted_  that Lady Catelyn Stark would be  _overjoyed_ to see proof of the lessons she’d so dutifully arranged for her girls come to fruition. Arya thinks it’s a trap, another way for Septa Mordane to get her mother to chide her for running away so often from these things.

Or simply to mortify Arya on her mother’s name day .

This thought is what loosens her control: an image of her mother, brightly excited upon seeing some true woven tapestry of Sansa’s that was too big for the scrap they’d been given. And then, the way her face would fall when Arya presented hers. It would be quick disappointment, their mother was too well bred to let such a look stay on her face, and so what would hurt most would be the smile she’d push on her face. The way she’d kneel close to Arya and lie,  _it looks lovely, my dear girl_.

She’d also probably ask:  _have you been practicing?_ with all of Septa Mordane’s reports in her ear and then Arya would be stuck with the shame of a lie or the truth and–)

she slaps her own cheek hard enough to sting when she feels the first tears rolling down. From the corner of her eye, she sees Sansa turn to look at her.

“Septa Mordane, I’m feeling a little bit thirsty, would you mind bringing Arya and I some tea? With lemon?” Sansa sounds sweet in the way that adults like, demure and pretty and  _perfect_  and so totally unlike anything Arya could ever manage. Septa Mordane doesn’t even see Arya’s face before she heads out to do so.

And then Sansa’s voice drops, so she sounds all of ten years old again, Arya’s sister again. “What’s  _wrong_ with you?”

Of course, Arya only drops her hands and starts crying openly, wiping tears and snot from her face as she starts to try and tear the piece of fabric in her hands apart. Sansa’s hands stop her before she can get too far, and the sudden contact makes Arya snap:

“Shut  _up_ , you don’t have to  _look_  at it! You  _know_ it’s ugly! Don’t be  _cruel_!”

But her hands are already down, the crooked stitches and broken threads plain for Sansa to see.

“Yes well… it makes for a rather lovely… tower?” she’s using her adult voice then, and Arya wants to scream.

“It’s a  _trout_!”

Sansa frowns back, “Yes well what do you  _want_ me to say!? It’s ugly, there, are you happy? Gods, come  _here_ ,” and though Arya tries to wrench her hands from her sister’s, Sansa is determined to get them closer. “I’m going to help you,  _relax_ Arya.” And it’s more shock than gratitude that makes Arya open her fingers and let Sansa take over.

She directs Arya’s fingers with the needle, pushing and pulling the thread through. Arya notes that it’s not up to Sansa’s usual standards of perfection, and that was likely because she had to sacrifice quality for the effort to make Arya’s hands do the motion instead of hers.

But, when she’s finished, it’s clear the shape around Arya’s messy stitches is a fish. “There, now just fill it in wildly the way you do, inside my lines. It’ll look  _creative_ and  _charming_. Fish scales aren’t very even anyway.”

Wiping the tears from her face, Arya does just that.

It’s still ugly, Arya thinks, nothing like what it should look like, but Sansa had sounded almost confident that about those words.  _Creative, charming,_  said in her normal sister voice instead of her demure  _Lady_  voice. It’s almost enough that Arya believes her despite the fact that her stitches don’t change, especially now that she’s working faster. A confidence from her sister and a need to get out as fast as she can moves her, though she takes note to stay inside Sansa’s outline.

She’s finished before her tea gets cold, presenting the embroidery with such a confidence that Septa Mordane can’t even speak about the look of the stitches.

And then she’s out into the crisp midday air, muddy before sundown and wildflowers in her arms.

(They’re all for mother

except this one  _here_ , when Arya sees it she decides it’s better suited for Sansa.)

It’s not a  _thank you_  or anything, simply a coincidence that Arya would find this particular bloom on this particular day.

She doesn’t think Sansa believes that when Arya presents it to her.

Picking it warily from her sister’s dirty hands, Sansa actually grins. “You’re  _welcome_ , Arya.”

“For what?” Arya grins back before bolting away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted december 26, 2016
> 
> which, again, long after I quit the show and read the books last so may not be totally canon compliant

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr may 22, 2014


End file.
